AP PHOTOS: Mickey Rooney, a Hollywood icon

AP PHOTOS: Mickey Rooney, a Hollywood icon

Monday, April 7, 2014

Mickey Rooney, Hollywood's top box-office draw in the late 1930s to early 1940s, died Sunday at his North Hollywood home at age 93. Over the course of his career, he was nominated for four Academy Awards and received two special Oscars for film achievements, received an Emmy and a Tony nomination.

A small man physically, Rooney was prodigious in talent, scope, ambition and appetite. He sang and danced, played roles both serious and silly and wrote memoirs, a novel, movie scripts and plays.

Rooney also made hundreds of appearances on TV talk and game shows, dramas and variety programs.

"I always say, 'Don't retire — inspire,'" Rooney said in an interview with The Associated Press in March 2008. "There's a lot to be done."